I have over 12.6 years IT experience in SDLC and has been working as a
Project Manager. But,I'm new to ITIL family and just recently passed V3 Exam. I read a lot about SLA in the foundation course and have couple of questions regarding SLA. Can someone please clarify/guide me regarding the following questions.

1)Who negotiates and sets up the SLA with the customer ? is it always the "Service Provider or Service Level Manager" OR it can be a "Service Delivery Manager" too?I'm in the process of moving into Service Delivery Manager role and would like to learn as much as possible in regards to this SDM role & responsibilities etc.

2)How do we evaluate the SLA and what are the easy and best methods to improve SLA. I think there are lots of areas for improvement as I read in the book but practically I would like to know from the experts which are those which can be controlled easily and which are those areas to pay more attention etc to keep the project on track without slipping off.

Also, I would really appreciate if anyone can help me in giving some practical tips/guidelines and pass on their learning experiences which will benefit me a lot..

1)Who negotiates and sets up the SLA with the customer ?
2)How do we evaluate the SLA and what are the easy and best methods to improve SLA.

1) The IT Industry does as much to confuse everyone with respect to job titles and job descriptions. The right person/function to do this is really whoever:
* Can behave professionally with the customer and aim for a win-win;
* Understands the realistic price/performance (current and future) of the service;
* Does not over-promise or under-promise;
* Has the financial/legal authority to make decisions (even if delegated or back&forth with the boss);
* Understands the Service Design Package (look it up) in reasonable detail or can find the answers.
You need someone very similar on the customer side.

2) Your question is ambiguous.

If you mean how do you improve the SLA itself - well, you renegotiate it / cancel it.

If you mean how do I improve Service Level performance?
You can adjust perception or adjust reality or just agree a reality in the first place. Both can actually work. No - strike that - adjusting reality may not necessarily adjust perception, so you aloways need to adjust that:

Adjusting Perception.
You can fake it - give the impression with mysterious graphs and numbers that all is well. Find out who's vocal and sell/give them a VIP service.
You can shift it - invest some effort in getting justification that none of the issues are in your control, infact they are all the customer/user's fault.
Be nice - invest some money in training your frontline people on "being nice" - customer service training. Especially to VIPs.
Send up some smoke screens - conduct some web-surveys and an improvement plan with no SMART metrics. Will give the impression you're doing something.

Adjusting Reality
Reduce demand and reinvest in fixing things - charge the customer extra and they'll stop thinking they have an all-you-can-eat buffet... Or let 'em do it themselves - eg: self-service.
Crank up the sausage factory - Burn some money actually responding and resolving quicker by throwing more bodies at it.

Agreeing a Reality. ie: Tell The Truth.
Best bang for your buck is the Service Portfolio Mgt process. Inventory your services in a catalog. Prep a business case on what you want to improve and what you can't change right now. Get the customer to agree.

Also, there are plenty of long-winded metrics approaches (get the CSI book).

Or you could always go to the start of the ITIL Strategy book and confuse the sh!t out of them, create a 4-year roadmap based around a perfect CMDB and restructure before you have to deliver anything.

PS: in terms of study experience. Get off your ar$e and read through this forum. If it is a V2 Mgrs course, do lots of exam questions under exam conditions. For all of the multi-guess choices, prep as best you can and then follow some basic boolean logic as per who wants to be a millionaire, or choose C.